Expansions
by Lady-of-the-Refrigerator
Summary: A collection of follow-ups to chapters from my Snapshots story collection, longer than 1000 words.


[A follow-up to Snapshots Chapter 18: Because I Love You, as hinted at/requested by meetmeatthecoda. Hope you enjoy!]

All at once, Liz felt the tension leave Red's body, every flexed muscle and grasping, clutching limb relaxed against her. His breath was hot and humid at her neck, each heavy pant raising a paradoxical wave of shivers down her spine, but even that tapered off as his body calmed and time returned to normal speed.

Her own heart gradually stopped pounding in her ears. She unclenched her legs from around his hips, loosened the arm she had wrapped around his shoulders to hold herself up close to him. He pushed himself upright again with the hand he had braced on the wall next to her head. The lingering pressure of his fingers on her thigh was the last to leave her.

It was a rare thing for Liz to climax the first time she had sex with a partner, but with Red? Oh, she came, all right—quickly enough that it was almost embarrassing. It wasn't so much that Red was especially good (though he was), it was that he was _Red_, or Ilya, or whoever the fuck he used to be. It was that her attraction to him was so painfully strong, even believing he was her father hadn't succeeded in quashing it. (Which was a truth that didn't make her feel especially _good_, either, but it was what it was.)

Liz caught her first real glimpse of Red's cock as he pulled back from her, just beginning to soften when he tucked it back into his boxer-briefs. It was foolish to blush at this point, considering what they'd just done, considering she could still feel the evidence of their lovemaking between her legs, but blush she did.

He zipped his fly before he crouched down to scoop up his hat and her own discarded clothing. He handed the tangled pile to her without quite making proper eye contact and went about fixing his dress shirt and vest and everything else.

He took a step away from her and she caught him by the wrist; he looked down at her hand before he even tried to look her in the eye.

"Please stay with me," she said. "I know we… I know it's too soon, but…"

"Too soon." He huffed a hollow laugh. "Too soon for staying the night, but not for…"

"Look, if you want to leave, just say so and—"

"I don't want to leave," he snapped, cutting her off.

"Oh." She let go slowly, drawing her fingers down the back of his hand before finally pulling away completely.

They held each other's gaze as seconds ticked by in silence. The attention felt like burning, felt like pressure on Liz's chest, suffocating in its intensity. She looked away first.

She heard Red exhale, and then he brushed past her towards the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" She pulled her jeans back on as she followed him, hopping a little as she tried to get the stretchy, skinny denim to cooperate with her still-sweaty skin.

"Am I wrong to assume you haven't had dinner yet?"

"No. What are you gonna do, cook for me?"

He started opening cabinets and closing them again with increasing frustration. "Well, that depends. Do you have any food at all in this place?"

"Not much."

He shot her an exasperated look.

"When would I even have time to cook?"

"There are certain things that are worth making time for."

"Maybe when _you_ cook, it's worth making time for. Not me. There's a folder full of take-out menus in the drawer next to the fridge."

Red made an odd noise when he pulled open the drawer. "Elizabeth," he admonished. "This is as thick as my case file. How on earth do you ever decide?"

Liz shrugged. "Order whatever you like. I trust you."

He held her gaze just a moment too long before turning his attention to the menus. He began sorting them by type of food—a pile for pizza, a pile for Chinese, one for Indian, another for Italian, another for Mexican…

Liz was starting to think he had a point—the selection was a bit absurd. After a long day at work, she usually defaulted to wherever was quickest. He apparently reached a similar conclusion when he sighed and picked a flyer seemingly at random from one of the stacks.

"Pizza?"

"It's simple."

"Simple's nice."

She watched for a moment while he squinted back and forth between the tiny print on the menu and the number pad on his phone. She wondered if it was vanity or stubbornness or necessity that kept him from carrying reading glasses. Maybe a convenient amalgamation of the three.

"There should be a couple of old pairs of reading glasses somewhere in there, too."

He rummaged around in the drawer, succeeding in finding a pair of thin, wire-framed glasses that he perched on the bridge of his nose. The scale was all wrong, but seeing Red wear her glasses brought a lump to Liz's throat. She shook herself, thankful that he had focused all of his attention on the menu again. What an unusual thing to get choked up about.

Order placed, he took off his jacket to drape over one of her chairs and then sat on the sofa with one arm stretched out across the back, casual and confident as if they were in his space rather than hers.

Liz sat on the other end with her arms crossed and one leg tucked under her, bent at the knee. Red glanced over at her, let out a heavy sigh, and glanced away. He brushed at a fleck of something on his trousers, then scraped at it with a fingernail when that wasn't enough to dislodge it.

Liz looked away, ears burning at the sudden awareness of what it must be.

Sex was supposed to be the easy part—and perhaps the sex had been. The aftermath was another story.

Faced with the prospect of a good half hour until the food arrived, the silence between them was unbearable. Liz couldn't handle it. She couldn't just sit there in such excruciating awkwardness.

If they weren't going to talk, they would just have to keep occupied another way. She shook her head and lunged at Red across the couch only to have him meet her in the middle, catching her in his arms as she moved to capture his lips.

He settled back down again and she shoved him into the cushions, climbing into his lap, nipping and biting before she deepened the kiss. She worked a hand down between their bodies and found him already half-hard, heavy with need.

She groaned her satisfaction into his mouth and shoved her knees down on either side of him, caging him between her legs. He splayed his fingers just below the small of her back, pressing into the curve of her ass so he could buck into her, driving up against the thick denim seam along her center. The pleasure arched her body into him, but it wasn't _enough_; she wanted that thickness inside her again, she wanted that stretch, that friction, soreness be damned. She wanted him to fill her up, to mark her. She wanted to mark him, too.

Because whoever he was, whoever he had been, he was _hers_ now. As long as he would allow it. She wanted to scream it from the rooftops, but she couldn't do that, so she settled for what _was_ within her reach. She could etch herself into his body, imprint herself on his soul, like he'd imprinted himself on hers. They could take out every last scrap of frustration on each other between the sheets instead of how they usually dealt with it; it probably wouldn't even be the worst thing they'd ever done to each other.

The doorbell rang.

Liz and Red tore their mouths away from each other, staring dazedly at the apartment door. For a moment, neither of them remembered they had ordered food. A helpful stomach growl remedied that.

The bell rang again.

Liz pushed herself back, crouched next to Red again on the couch.

"You better get that," he said gruffly, and crossed his legs. The movement suggested he was less worried about being recognized as a wanted criminal than he was about being seen sporting a hard-on.

Liz paid for the food as quickly and efficiently as possible, and gave the delivery boy a handsome tip that she hoped made up for her disheveled appearance and the general scent of sex in the air.

She felt Red's eyes on her as she set the pizza boxes on the coffee table and dropped to the floor, reaching for his fly. He threw his head back when she grasped him and drew him out of his boxer-briefs.

When she took him into her mouth, she wasn't gentle, but he didn't want gentle. Not now. Not this time. He'd come once already; this time would take longer and the food was already getting cold.

Red tasted of both of them, but of course he did; barely any time at all had passed since they'd fucked in her front hallway. The taste spurred Liz on, made her more determined in her search for his pleasure. He breathed deeply, taking long, panting breaths, so deep even his belly heaved under her hand. His outstretched leg was taut as a bowstring where it pressed against her side.

A hand at her cheek, another tugging under her armpit urged her up to straddle his lap again. She fumbled her fly open and shoved down her jeans, trying to avoid kneeling on anything important in her haste.

Reaching behind her to position Red once she'd been freed, Liz lowered herself until she enveloped him completely. He pulled her up until she was on her knees and she slammed herself down again, over and over, setting a punishing rhythm.

His fingers moved over her even as he panted into her shoulder, pressing his face hard against her as he rocked up as much as he could into her thrusts. She spasmed and bucked and jerked, unable to control her movements as she clenched around his thick length. His fingernails bit into the flesh at her hips as he spilled inside her again.

Liz climbed off of Red—too hot, too close, too much—and collapsed onto her side of the couch. He kicked off his shoes and shoved his crumpled trousers to the floor, shedding his dress shirt and vest with just as much urgency. He covered his eyes with a hand and leaned back, breathing harshly while he came back down to earth.

"Sock garters. You're wearing sock garters."

"They're practical."

"They're old fashioned."

"So am I."

Liz snorted. "Sure you are."

Red removed his hand so he could look her straight in the eye. "Elizabeth, how many times have you poked fun at me for not understanding Tweety Bird?"

"Twitter?"

"Whatever," he said, and he threw his whole arm over his face for good measure.

Liz took to her feet as soon as she trusted her legs to hold her, uncomfortable in her sweat soaked clothing. It was her apartment—nothing was stopping her from just changing clothes. She slipped out of the room to clean up and pulled on the pajamas she had stashed under her pillow that morning before work.

"Do you want me to get you a drink while I'm up?"

Red peeked out from under his arm, taking her in quickly from head to toe. "Sure."

"Do you have a preference?"

"Anything hydrating."

Liz choked on a laugh.

Sex definitely _was_ the easy part. It was easier than talking, that was for sure. She wondered why they took so long to get here since it was such an effective way to avoid discussing anything that was at all difficult or complicated.

Keep your friends close and your estranged criminal informant-FBI agent closer. _Extremely_ close. _Inside you_.

She chuckled quietly to herself as she filled their glasses.

They ate sitting more or less cross-legged, facing each other from opposite ends of the couch with one of the pizza boxes open on the middle cushion between them to serve as a communal plate.

Liz tossed a pizza crust back into the box and brushed off her fingers. "So are we ever gonna talk about this, or are we just gonna pretend sleeping with each other doesn't change anything either?"

Red took a long draw from his drink.

"What do you want it to change?" He held up a hand, forestalling any snide comments. "I'm not trying to be difficult. I am… genuinely asking what you want. From me, from our relationship—such as it is."

"What do I want?" she repeated. "I want everything."

He was silent for a moment. "What on earth does that mean?"

Liz took a deep breath and let it out again slowly. "At one point or another, we've been just about everything that we can possibly be for each other. I'd like to at least acknowledge that, rather than playing Russian roulette to figure out whether I'm your handler or your savior or your lover on any given day. Maybe I'm all of that. But if I am, I'm all of it at once. I'm sick to death of the in-between. I need some stability. Especially if I'm bringing Agnes home."

Red took a moment to process what she said.

"And stability in relation to me and Agnes—what does that mean to you? Surely 'father' and 'grandfather' are off the table now."

Liz bit her lip. "Well, I've had enough fathers to last three lifetimes—I don't need another one. Agnes is fresh out, though. If you're interested."

Red's eyes slid shut for a moment, his brows knitting together in what looked like physical pain. "Elizabeth."

"What?"

He locked eyes with her, almost in alarm; he seemed like he was either going to start to cry or hyperventilate. Or both. "Please. Please don't—" His voice cracked.

"I'm not… Do you think I'm being facetious? I wouldn't… That would be cruel." She shook her head. "I know I'm not your favorite person right now, but you have to know… some things are off limits. I wouldn't offer you that place in Agnes' life as a _joke_."

"I don't know anything for certain. You surprise me all the time."

"That's not always a bad thing, is it?"

"No. No, it's not," he admitted. "This would be one of the good times, if it's sincere."

"It is sincere. I think you said something to me once about second chances," she said. "I'd like to give you one—a second chance at a normal life, or as close as we can get to it. A second chance at a family. Would you be willing to give me a second chance at all that, too? I know I probably don't deserve it—"

"Lizzy." Her breath caught at he sound of the old endearment on his lips. "Please don't talk like that."

"You still believe I deserve the best in life?"

"I always will," he said, and it felt like a promise, a pledge. "I couldn't solve this problem the way I usually solve problems like this, but that doesn't mean finding new avenues is a bad thing. It's… It's probably good for me; a wake up call that the way I've done things isn't necessarily the best or the only way. Not that I'd change the past, but…" He raised his shoulders and lowered them, more than a shrug. "What you mean to me is different than what the others have meant to me. And of course, that's why the betrayal hurt more. You should know what that's like."

"I do. And not just because of Tom. I hope you realize that."

He clenched his jaw. "I… understand that's how you felt, but—"

"Because it's really not all that different than what happened with him. You presented yourself as someone you weren't, too. I fell in love with a lie, twice."

"I've never played a part with you. The version of myself I am when I'm with you is the closest to my true self than almost anyone else ever gets to see. The name and the… origin of the reputation are the only things that are false. My feelings for you never were."

"I know that now. For a long time, I wasn't sure. That… bothered me more than it ever did with Tom."

"Why?"

"Like you said. Because it matters more. You're not a consolation prize that I'm settling for because something better seems impossible."

"I'm the 'something better' that you wanted?"

"Since we were on the run together, yeah," she admitted. "You… For a while I thought you knew. Then we came back. I guess I thought wrong."

"I don't know what to say to that."

"Don't say anything, then. It's in the past. Tom is dead. We're… here."

"Together."

"We survived."

"I'll drink to that."

They clinked their glasses together and drained them, and leaned back against their respective ends of the couch, studying each other for a long, pregnant moment.

"Why don't you get in bed? I'm gonna put away the leftovers and clean up and then I'll catch up to you."

"I should help—"

"Don't worry about it," she said, reaching across the box between them to snap the elastic on one of his sock garters. "There's some pajamas in the bottom drawer of my dresser. Get comfortable."

Liz stood, took Red's empty glass, and shooed him out of the room.

Once she finished, she found him standing next to her bed with the sheets turned down and pillows fluffed, looking vaguely ill-at-ease in a pair of plaid pajama pants.

"Are these Tom's?" he asked.

"Can you see your ankles?" Red glanced at himself in the mirror and nodded thoughtfully; the pant legs were indeed an inch or so too short for him. "Then, no. They're mine; it's easier to find pajama bottoms with functional pockets in the men's department."

"Ah."

They turned at the same time to crawl into bed, without any need to negotiate who would take which side. They'd known since the nights they spent in his friend's theatre that they were compatible in this one specific thing.

Stretched out next to each other, they met each other's gaze.

"If you're not too tired, I have a Netflix queue with your name on it that we could start filling up."

"That sounds—"

"Boring?"

"No," Red said, and the corner of his mouth twitched into a tiny hint of a smile. "Normal."

Liz snorted a laugh, and leaned in to kiss that tiny smile, lingering when Red's hand came up to hold her there.

"Normal's nice for a change."


End file.
